The Clarity in his articulation, the novelty in his thinking and his insistence to understand and not merely accept and follow were the things that struck apart about this book. This is wholesome and universal if the reader makes effort to understand.

Though the book is positioned for beginners, there are concepts which are difficult to understand, unless having some pre-reading on the subject. Overall, gives a peek on the broad aspect of the philosophy.

Reading "Krishnamurti for Beginners" is something similar to watching a great trailer of what seems to be a phenomenal movie. You just can't wait to watch the full movie.

I am not entirely new to Krishnamurti's writing. With "Freedom from the known", he has already assured me that my questioning the conditioning of mind is not misdirected. But, before I could venture more into mind, I wanted to garner some beginner's perspective of this great teacher.
In this anthology of some of his public talks, conversations, writings, letters and dialogues, Krishnamurti tries to touch upon the various questions that trouble everyman's mind from time to time, about love, marriage, sex, suffering, god, education, enlightenment, et al.

Krishnamurti focuses more on understanding, realization and practice than mere reading, memorizing and regurgitating. He urges man to be intelligent, and not just knowledgeable as knowing confines him to a particular aspect whereas intelligence enables him to understand life in totality. He says

Intelligence is the comprehension of the whole process, the total process of life, not knowledge of one fragment of life.

He adds,

Wisdom doesn't lie in books, nor in experience, nor in following another, nor in repeating a lot of platitudes. Wisdom comes to a mind that is understanding itself, understanding how thought is born."

If man focuses on "What is" rather than "What should be", a lot of inner conflict will die down freeing him from suffering. He says,

To break down the prison meant facing an often painful immediacy of 'what is' rather than chasing an often illusory promise of 'what should be' in some distant future."

"Know thyself" is the be-all and end-all answer to all of man's perplexing queries. Even for problems of love, he says,

Love is neither personal nor impersonal; it is a state of being. It is not of the mind; the mind cannot acquire it. You cannot practise love, or through meditation acquire it. It comes into being only when there is no fear, when this sense of anxiety, loneliness, has ceased, when there is no dependence or acquisition. And that comes only when we understand ourselves, when we are fully cognizant of our hidden motives, when the mind can delve into the depths of itself without seeking an answer, an explanation, when it is no longer naming.

Reading Krishnamurti is not easy. As some of his talks is little confusing than giving you the 'aha' moment. But you want to read him anyway, as you realize that the 'aha' moment is not far away.

"That is to realize that we are the world with all its ugliness, that we have contributed to all this, that we are responsible for all this, all this is happening in the Middle East, in Africa, and all the craziness that is going on in this world; we are responsible for it. We may not be responsible for the deeds for our grandfathers and great-grandfathers - Slavery, thousands of wars, the brutality of empires - but we are part of it. If we don't feel our responsibility, which means being utterly responsible for ourselves, for what we do, what we think, how we behave, then it becomes rather hopeless, knowing what the world is, knowing what we cannot individually, separately solve this problem of terrorism."

No one really is going to grasp understand, experience life as he did yet some of us keep reading this mf. Such is our delusions, hopes and optimisms.